


wounded so i must give up the fight

by Aethelar



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Disability, M/M, Paralysis, The isolation when no one knows what to say so they just drift away and pretend you don't exist, attempted suicide, but it's what i wrote, this one is slightly different to what i usually write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 00:53:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8946598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aethelar/pseuds/Aethelar
Summary: Let’s go for something different. Let’s move into an area I don’t usually move into. Let’s acknowledge the fact that Grindelwald was a dark lord, and he had Graves for - for how long? Weeks, months, how long was Graves at a dark lord’s mercy?
Let’s read the tags if we need to because this one isn’t fun.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Sound the Bugle:
> 
> _I'm a soldier - wounded so I must give up the fight_   
>  _There's nothing more for me_   
>  _Lead me away_   
>  _Or leave me lying here_

Grindelwald is a dark lord, but he’s not a sadist. He’s not a madman, or someone who gets off on torture. He’s a man with the greater good looming tall behind him, a man with a plan and a ruthless efficiency when it comes to executing that plan. When he takes Graves and designs the prison that will hold him, he’s concerned about it being able to keep Graves without being detected. He spends a good few hours going through barrier wards and concealing wards and magical chains to bind Graves down - then he stops. There’s an easier solution. A more _efficient_ solution.

He breaks Graves’ spine and leaves him paralysed from the neck down.

It’s - can’t you see how beautiful it is? Graves can’t move. Graves can’t feel his body, can’t struggle, can’t reach for the magic that slips out of his grasp and pools thick and choking in his lungs -

Grindelwald doesn’t even bother with a locking charm. He dumps Graves in the spare bedroom of Graves’ own house and he sets up just enough automated charms to keep the man alive. He’s only a glorified potions ingredient, Grindelwald doesn’t need to do more than that. After a while he even stops screaming.

And then Grindelwald is captured. He doesn’t tell them where Graves is, of course he doesn’t, but they find the polyjuice potion hidden in flasks and vials in his pockets and the word spreads through the auror department like wildfire: _Graves is alive. Graves could be coming back._ It becomes an anthem, a becon of hope to push them through the nightmare task of undoing the damage Grindelwald has done: _Graves will be back. He’ll swear and he’ll curse and he’ll fix it. Graves will fix it._

Graves is dying on the floor of his own spare bedroom, starving to death as charm by charm the life support system fails around him. He reaches for his magic but it sits sluggish and disobedient like his hands, his feet, his legs his arms his knees -

Have you got any idea what that’s like? Have you got _any idea_? When death is the final escape and you’re too weak even to reach for that?

Graves is unconcious when the aurors find him. It’s a mercy, that he doesn’t see their faces, doesn’t hear their disbelieving sobs - doesn’t see the way they flinch back from the smell. He wakes up in hospital.

He’s alive. He came back. He sweares and he curses (he’s angry for being brought back, so _angry_ that even this choice was taken from him) but he can’t fix the problems he was supposed to come back and fix. He can’t fix anything.

The aurors don’t know how to treat him. There’s always been an undercurrent in his anger, a solid thread of _protection_ and _my blundering idiots_ and _don’t you dare get your fool self killed_ but that’s gone now. There used to be a rock at his core, a strength to rely on, a steady care behind the dressings down and the shit assignments and the too-long hours spent on overtime. They used to go out for drinks after a particularly bad case, and Graves would buy them a round of whiskey and a steady stream of pints. He’d buy them _pork scratchings_ if they wheedled hard enough.

Now, Graves is bitter. He’s hurt. He’s trapped in a hell that never goes away and his aurors don’t know what to do, what they can say, how to cope with the fact that their protector is hurt. It’s easier not to visit. It’s easier to look away. It’s easier to pretend that someone else was closer to him, someone else would know how to deal with him.

Tina stays, because she believes that someone ought and because Graves was once a friend. Graves pleads with her, begs her - his voice cracks and breaks and he grits his way through the words that rasp like sandpaper against his throat - _I don’t want to be here, Goldstein, don’t make me live like this._

There’s no cure for paralysis. Not in the magical world. Tina refills his cup and adds a fresh straw, holds it up against his lips and takes it away again when he refuses to drink. She’s afraid to talk in case she sobs and she knows, she knows that’s not what Graves needs, but she can’t help the tears that press against her eyes.

_Six months_ , she says. _Six months, and if you still want me to I will. But it might get better before then._

It won’t. Graves doesn’t know why he agrees, because it won’t get better.

Graves is moved back to his own house (his prison) and given a chair that he can move with the barest tilt of his head. (He tries to drive it off the balcony, and it’s only the faintest threads of his promise to Tina that make him stop on the edge and stare at the fall that would set him free. He resents her for it.)

And that’s… that’s all there is. Six months of waiting, and that’ll be it.

That’s all there is.

 

 

That’s _not_ all there is. That can’t be, that won’t be - how can that be all there is? You are a mind, you are a _person_ you’re alive and you exist and you think you can just fade away and no one will care? You think that you are so unimportant that you can spend six months waiting to die and no one will notice?

Tina will help you, Tina will respect your wishes in this because it’s your life and your choice, but you think it won’t _hurt_?

No. No, you don’t get to do that to her, to yourself, you don’t get to -

The niffler escapes, and Newt chases her down. Frank the thunderbird walks along Graves’ roof, claws scraping against the tiles. Dougal wanders free, a babysitter without a baby, and creeps invisible through Graves’ empty halls. Frank trills down the chimney and the niffler trills back to the friend she hasn’t seen in a while and Dougal pats her on the head and turns towards the hall with eyes glowing future-blue.

“Hello?” Newt says, pushing open the unlocked door with his wand out. The lumos spell clinging to the tip reveals a house that is dusty, unkempt, unlit and unloved.

“Hello?” He repeats, voice echoing in the watchful dark. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to intrude. I just - I was looking for my niffler. Have you seen her? Hello?”

Upstairs, Graves sits silent and still, staring at the scoured floor of the spare bedroom and listening to the long-faded echoes of his screams.

“Hello?” Newt calls, voice floating up the stairs, and Graves rests his head back against the chair and wants him to go away.

You have six months, Newt. Make them count.


End file.
